Bosnian Fluxes

David Henig is an Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University and Editor-in-Chief of the journal History and Anthropology. He is the author of numerous articles on Islam, charitable economies and the ethics of giving, and postsocialism in Southeast Europe. More recently, he has been writing on war ecologies in the Anthropocene. He is the author of Remaking Muslim Lives: Everyday Islam in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he co-edited Economies of Favour after Socialism, and Where is the Good in the World? Ethical Life between Social Theory and Philosophy.Jaroslav Klepal is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University. He obtained his PhD in Anthropology from Charles University. In his dissertation based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina he explored the enactments of posttraumatic stress disorder and reconsidered the approaches to this subject in medical anthropology. His researches on war veterans, the ontological politics of trauma, and medical technologies have resulted in book chapters and articles that were published in journals such as Medical Anthropology, Science as Culture, or Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.Ondřej Žíla is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of International Studies, Charles University. He received his PhD in Modern World History from Charles University. His research focuses on the consequences of the transition from war to peace in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. On the basis of his long-term fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he published a monograph titled ‘You Are My Only Homeland.’ Ethno-demographic changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1945–2013 (in Czech) and he has also published numerous articles in journals such as the Political Geography, Nations and Nationalism, Journal of Refugee Studies, Nationalities Papers, and East European Politics and Society.

"Bosnian Fluxes challenges the static analytical frameworks of postsocialist, postcolonial, and postconflict that commonly preordain imaginations of possible life since the Cold War. Instead, the editors foreground multiplicities of kinetic agitation, or flux, as being at the heart of perpetual becoming. A stellar line-up of contributors showcase how categories of belonging, caring, and reckoning have porous membranes where socio-political relationships are in flux, sedimenting and solidifying in places while vibrantly fizzing toward novel connections in others.Bosnia and Herzegovina is the spatio-temporal coordinate from which to launch a wide-ranging analysis of how fluxes of people, environments, technologies, institutions, and politics traverse the post-Cold War world. As such, this volume will appeal far beyond its regional grounding, weaving as it does a rich tapestry of ethnography and theory that will appeal to scholars of political anthropology and nation-building, social theory, and humanitarian policy."- Daniel M. Knight, University of St Andrews, author of Vertiginous Life: An Anthropology of Time and the Unforeseen."Unlike many works that resort to “crisis” or “deadlock” to explain postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina, this wide-ranging collection of essays shifts our attention to the underlying social currents that make up everyday life in this place. By exploring a variety of interrelated subjects, from the economies of care-giving to the politics of identifying missing persons, this volume makes a major contribution to a better understanding not only of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also of global connections that shape our post-Cold War world."- Edin Hajdarpasic, Professor of History, Loyola University Chicago, author of Whose Bosnia? Nationalism and Political Imagination in the Balkans, 1840–1914.

• List of contributors Lists of figuresForeword: The post-Cold War at lastHeonik Kwon AcknowledgementsToward an anthropology of fluxes in the post-Cold War world: An introductionDavid Henig, Jaroslav Klepal, and Ondřej Žíla PART I – THE SLIPPERY GROUNDS OF BELONGING1. Dynamic ores: An underground perspective on the BalkansSabrina Perić2. Nostalgia in flux: Remembering Yugoslavia amid ethnic and economic precarities Jelena Golubović3. Generation Dayton: Youth, social engagement, and neoliberal subjectivities in Republika SrpskaMichele BianchiPart I commentary: ‘In exile in our own country’: Aporetic belonging in a de facto stateRebecca BryantPART II – CARE ON THE MOVE4. Care, control, and covid: Pandemic responses and the ‘migrant crisis’ in the Bihać regionElissa Helms 5. Seeing like a social worker: On social protection, improvisation, and veze in Bihać Azra Hromadžić6. Worker experiments in humanitarian politicsAndrew GilbertPart II commentary: Politics and care’s descriptive aimClara HanPART III – NUMBERS IN FLUX7. Numbers, emigration, and care in Bosnia and HerzegovinaStef Jansen8. Body politics: The identification of the missing and the persistence of denialAdmir Jugo and Sarah Wagner Part III commentary: Numbers in flux: Visible and invisible, present and absentBjørn Enge BertelsenIndex